3 Days in Vienna in July

I would strongly recommend that you pick up the Rick Steves book on Germany and Austria. There is a great section on Vienna in it. I loved Schoenbrun, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Opera tour, and the treasury in the Hofburg Palace. Sadly, in July there are few live performances, but all is not lost. You can go to theRathausplatz and hear the concerts from the previous season for free. They have a gigantic screen set up with chairs and food booths everywhere. It's a bit like Taste of Chicago with a very Vienna twist. We went nearly every night.

Pam

You might want to consider doing a day trip by train to Budapest. We did it our last trip there and it was very nice. We stayed at Le Meridian near the West Banhof, which made it easy to catch the train.

Schonnbrunn Palace was my favorite activity in Vienna. The area between Melk and Krems (Wachau valley) was a lot of fun. We biked it and loved stopping at some of the small towns between the 2. There is a castle in the area that Richard the Braveheart spend a night that you can hike up to-we didn't do that since we were biking already. We went along the north side of the Danube. As a drive, it would fit well with your overall purpose of your trip- enjoying your car while you tour the countryside. Plan to spend at least 1/2 a day driving the 24 km so that you have time to enjoy the towns and scenery. (maybe stopping for lunch along the way) The Melk abbey was very impressive, and we enjoyed the town of Melk as well. It is quite a bit smaller than Krems-you can walk from one end to the other. The abbey itself has a huge free parking lot and you can walk down into town from the abbey. You might also consider stopping at Mauthausen Concentration camp on you way to Salzburg. (allow several hours). Have a great trip.

Make sure that you have a picnic lunch packed when you drive to Melk from Vienna! There are lots of wonderful places along the Danube where you can stop and enjoy a meal while you take in the view. I'm glad that you are doing the Stift Melk (i.e., the Abbey) because it is a great place to visit as well.

There are lots of very nice things to do in Vienna and Rick has all of them covered. If you do decide to go to the Opera via the standing area, keep in mind that you will need to get there early and you will have a long wait before you get inside! Enjoy your trip to Vienna. It is a great city.

Penn

In Vienna we took a bus to one of the restaurants in the wineareas outside of Vienna.It was a great experience.Steves talks about it in his book.

Hi - My husband and I were in Vienna for a few days last year. We went out to a heurigen and had a wonderful time here is a link http://www.pfarrplatz.at/home-eng.htm

The food was great, the wine was great, and the atomosphere was really fun.

Do go see the Belevedere museum http://www.belvedere.at/jart/prj3/belvedere/main.jart?rel=en

We did not get the Wien Card we just paid as went.

We also went to Salzburg loved it.

Amy